adrienne maree, the luscious satyagraha

i’m beginning to think i am jinxed. everytime i’ve been in the midwest in the past year i have gotten stuck there - delayed, sometimes overnight. this time it was merely a delay BUT they got us on the plane before deciding we’d have to wait. thank god for chili’s margaritas and buffalo wings! and brookstone massage chairs.

on the plane i met this fabulous ny original named christos who kept me thoroughly entertained with unpretentious stories that exposed his proper knowledge of music, shoes, politics and all else. hurray for half-greeks.

gideon yago was on the plane -  but you know when you could do a polite catch-up or just look back at your magazine?

plus i was still reeling from my last 24 hrs. i had a great strategy session with the columbus league group, then drove back to the nati and met up with dani and local poet idrissa and we all headed over to the greenwich - WONDERFUL spot where the bartender will make you something magical if you say you drink whiskey and want the best thing he can make. mad folks came over and we watched the fight - bernard hopkins losing his title to bad ass jermaine taylor. i LOVE boxing!!!

then we - including this HOT PIMP mennonite named Sam - retired to gavin leonard’s hot tub (gavin is the primary administrator/$raiser for this amazing youth program in cincinatti - elementz - if you’re ever through there GO CHECK IT) where kofi provided mind expansion and kathy y wilson, my nati love, gave me cause to leave the hot bubbly. hot tubbing in cincinnati is not like hot tubbing in canada. we had to wear clothes. BOOOO. some unnamed person did slip out of his clothes though. OOPS! somehow its scandalous that way, it’d be so much easier if we started off bare…

this morning we made a fast dash to tuckers for the best breakfast potatoes outside of my uncle wimp’s house…the dude hooks them up with cheese, mushrooms, scallions, tomatoes, they taste like heaven. everything he makes tastes perfect. ah nati, so many reasons to come back.

theme lyrics for the weekend, dedicated to the NATI:

Much more is what we got in store

Just believe me

  "And what we have is much more than they can see"

Much more than they can see

is how it’ll always be, believe me (gotta believe)

  "And what we have is much more than they can see"

- De La Soul, the Grind Date

today i am in ohio. i started in the nati with dani mcclain, my cosmic soul sister. her good friend kathy y. wilson is my interior design soulmate. she writes an article for city beat out here, and has a book out y’all all need to get called ‘your negro tour guide’ which is F-ING on point. everything in her house is deep and brilliant and unique and complete. if for no other reason than how she hooks up her house, we should get married tomorrow! plus there are other reasons, i heart ky wilson! she’s out of my league, but…oh behave.

that said, dani’s mother - the lovely andrea - welcomed me to the nati with dinner at tinks and then the opera. its toni morrison society weekend, including the launch of the opera version of the margaret garner story. margaret’s story was fictionalized in beloved - she killed her babies rather than see them grow up as slaves. dani and i walked passed toni morrison on the way into the theater, and she smiled at us the way someone whose mind is incomprehensible and irresisitable smiles at young kindreds.GEEK OUT! toni is super adorable for a genius, all short and smiles.

tomorrow i am doing a strategy session with columbus league group. i love being in the field, and all travel - let’s go on a trip babies, just ask me anywhere…

one line from the opera - i would have made it a miracle, the pace of an opera is a little slower…but here’s one line, stanza, i loved that stayed in my brain:

when sorrow is deep
the secret soul keeps
its weapon of choice
the love of all loves

try singing it to really feel its impact…

check this dude: www.listentoyoureyes.com - he left his card for me at the baths the last time i went. i thought it was a mistake but they insisted no, he wanted you to have it. he’s a voyeur. i think he wants to photograph me. i feel i should tell him i am not photogenic! but part of me is like how about this angle?

what does one do if they like but are allergic to cats???

mom! i know you are reading my blog. i can’t decide if that makes you the coolest mom ever or what! i definitely feel like you cannot use anything found in this blog against me, ok? i drink, i puff - but never nicotine! and i take lovely lovers. i have integrity about all of it, trust me, i still think you raised me right…so…enjoy!

what else, what else…oh. new boy toy! yay! happy summer, self! you are doing great and it looks good on you

had a beautiful dinner tonight with a close friend and i was reminded of healing. that in the midst of my life right now under it all i’m healing. i went through the upheaval a few years ago, this heartbreak of late is only possible because i fell for me a while ago…this friend of mine is in the throes of it. perhaps my heartbreaker is in the throes of it - i can’t know right now…but i am watching my close circle who were all sort of simultaneously in many ways disappointed recently - all of us starting to pick up the pieces. or - perhaps its letting go of the pieces. healing is going into the wound, finding every little piece of the splinter or the bullet or the shrapnel in you and extracting it, looking at it - this beautiful weapon that you thought would take your life but you’re still here. this lovely pain you knew you couldn’t survive but you breathed in and now you can sigh over it but you made it through. and you maybe wash it off, that waste, that leftover…but then you got to throw it off a bridge, into the river, into the dark. remember it, then let it go. and the person who hurt you - you can forgive them…you can let them go. you can realize its all pain, its all fear, its all healing and that’s the way the world is, sometimes you catcht the raw end of someone else’s process. but they are on the other side of the glass, as i told a friend today, that person who hurt you is just there, pressed up against it, watching you love them, watching you writhe with the pain of it. they would do better by you if they could, you know. you have to forgive them for not being capable, and forgive yourself for forgetting to love yourself enough to protect yourself from that half-hearted passion. but once you get there, once you see it, you get that next level sight. you get to see what could be next. its always better. its always gonna learn you good. its love unfolding, you can’t be stagnant and you can’t hide from it, if you choose to live, you gotta actually do it and do it the best you fuckin can. and then better. i’m off for the weekend. love yourselves darlings…

this post is dedicated to my youngest sister in every way. i suspect my middle sister has also met the one but they are saying they are friends and who am i to say? but this is the blog of the baby sister and her boyfriend sam and the chapel they just discovered while paddling a lake in minnesota with my mom while she was visiting, which they decided they will get married in. here are the pictures of how love looks:

i even woke up today and realized that in all the fun last night i lost my phone, but then sofia the wise had the bright idea to call apt and they have it and she’s gonna bring it to me. this relates to my sister cause we have a phone date!!

people, wondering if you’re in love? check above - do you glow like that? if not, keep on lookin!

"just cause we all hookin up with women, just means that sometimes womenare hot and you have to lay them down and play house" - me, in responseto someone asking if everyone i went to school with is now gay. no, darlingsthe world is just getting better. 

come to brooklyn, i think we might be in the midst of the ft green renaissance!yes, brooklyn is babylon too but we are surviving really well here. perhaps because there's a difference between the people who make a living looking hot and those of us who make a living and happen to be hot sometimes.

tonight i saw the number one crush. he is so smart that talking to himis like a hooping session - i have to remember to swivel my brain and still smile. all i know of him is that he's sometimes at parties i am at and he's lovely and intelligent. i am always quite glad he exists.

but it was the night of crushes, all of mine came out to rude tonight - www.rudemovements.net - it was on, such a nice kind of scene

saw an old lover and kissed him between two vans near the piers. he's reliably sexy and unavailable, perfectly trystable. saw a crushee - i am now officially her muse! and she's hot. and then my other crush, who swears she doesn't play with girls. sigh. whose playing? however both bought me drinks. special night for a special girl!

also notable: chelsea's hipbones yummy yummy, dustin and his camera and the woman he's either marrying or married is a gorgeous amazing dancer, saw ben who was radiatingthe positive life force, adam and his wife, and adeola, and ese from afar!

plus i started the night with my 4 year old boyfriend jalen, turns 5 on monday, who is so fabolous you should be shamed to be around him and not play. our swordfights are legendary!

also met with the follow up folks from the tv show, looks highly likely that we can go monthly with it!

another thought - i am almost at peace with the random ants in the house, they find what i lose, and if its clean they disappear - almost like cinderella! EXCEPT when they get bold, and have delusions of grandeur that i am a lost morsel. eating me? come now!

cocococococo or xoxoxoxoxxoo

this morning i had breakfast at my favorite spot - green apple cafe on dekalb, with queen piper anderson, who is heading up the blackout arts collective these days. what a dope woman y’all. their lyrics on lockdown tour starts next week - check the calendar on their site to see if its comin your way and DO go check them: www.blackoutartscollective.com!

when i got home i was sitting here looking down at my chest, which i have been doing a lot since my mom took me bra shopping last week. i was thinking that my breasts looks pretty awesome except that the left one seems to be larger than the right. no matter what i did, this was the case. finally i ended up topless in the mirror arms above my head realizing that my dedication to the movement has internalized such that the left has a significantly larger home even in my mammaries!!

citizen cope flashback! whew. breathe in wax off.
then - www.raylamontagne.com - another overheard in a restaurant new love of mine. go listen to him.

tomorrow night is rude movements at apt - the tall light and handsome tyler spinning. i’m going…are you?

in other good news - it appears i have negotiated my way back into my apt with mad improvements for a rent raise. never give up, never surrender, particularly when it comes to ny real estate.

my horoscope said to tell that special someone how you feel, so i told my new gay boyfriend shane that he is the shit in a gucci bag.

here are some poems sent to me from my canadian sister claire:

And now we will count to
  twelve

and we will all keep still
…

For once on the face of the
  earth

let’s not speak in any
  language,

let’s stop for one second,

and not move our arms so
  much.

It would be an exotic
moment

without rush, without engines,
 

we would all be together

in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea

would not harm whales

and the man gathering salt

would look at his hurt
  hands.

Those who prepare green
  wars,

wars with gas, wars with
  fire,

victory with no survivors,

would put on clean clothes

and walk about with their
  brothers

in the shade, doing
nothing.

What I want should not be
  confused

with total inactivity.

(Life is what it is about,

I want no truck with death.)

If we were not so
  singleminded

about keeping our lives
  moving,

and for once could do
  nothing,

perhaps a huge silence

might interrupt this
sadness

of never understanding
  ourselves

and of threatening ourselves
  with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach
  us

as when everything seems
  dead

and later proves to be
  alive.

Now I’ll count up to
twelve,

and you keep quiet and I will
  go.

 - Pablo Neruda

You do not have to be good.

you do not have to walk on your
  knees

for a hundred miles through the
  desert, repenting.

You only have to let the soft
  animal of your body

love what it loves.

Tell me about despair, yours,
  and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes
on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear
  pebbles of the rain

are moving across the
  landscapes,

over the praries and the deep
  trees,

the mountains and the
  rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high
  in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how
  lonely,

the world offers itself to your
  imagination,

calls to you like the wild
  geese, harsh and exciting –

over and over announcing your
  place

in the family of things.

- Mary Oliver

today i went with sofia y shane y jen y hector y the bergster to the citizen cope show at central park. the opening band…the royal wylds, they were tight. the sun was on blast and the crowd was soaking it in.i thought i wasn’t gonna last in the sun, but i forgot all that.

clarence greenwood, aka citizen cope, was breathtaking.

i first heard him in barnes and noble about a year ago while using a gift certificate from my mama. i asked the store folks who dis? they said it was a song called sideways by a man named citizen cope - i came home and looked him up. on www.citizencope.com you can hear the whole song sideways. he’s got the spirit of a white bob marley as completely insane as that sounds.

i was caught up - later sofia found a free copy of his album she’d copped and hadn’t even realized what she had. gold and dirt, that’s cope. i love the whole album - it can get you thru days. his concert was great, plus he surprisingly has eyes the shade of melted butter, which is how you feel when he looks at you. he sang all the songs i needed to hear, PLUS ‘is this love’

now he’s engaged i hear, so i kept my groupieness respectful. well i kind of always do cause in general i actually don’t like meeting ‘famous people’ and the whole fan dynamic stuff. but imagine my blessed surprise when he strolled up to havana cafe tonight. the owner saw me geek out and said, he comes here all the time. i said hi to him after much nervous belly action. jen was supposed to bring him over but she was too busy makin nice with a fly havana employee.

i got up my courage and let the words tumble out - ‘i was at your show today and we all were and we think you’re awesome and you’re awesome you know and i heard you in a store and i had to buy it and then i am a singer and you have inspired me and stuff.’ he was able to slip in ‘yeah you were in the front row - wow. thanks. wow. thanks. wow. thanks.’ we exchanged names and a handshake. i am completely happy and recommited to learning the guitar this summer!

mos def was also there. and shawanna i think her name is - gorgeous gorgeous singer who performed with me a few years back at the nina tribute sofia and forrest and i put on. overall, a lovely day outside in ny.

now i am in the midst of my annual watching of malcolm x. have you ever looked up black in the dictionary? holla.

hello friends, family, beloveds, et cetera

i am - yes fully awake at 3:30. A.M. i was asleep in the arms of the lovely shane at sofia’s house and hector wsa there and jen and ling-lang (one of whom hit the motherload last night, which means somewhere an angel got her wings!), but i woke with a start and said no couch for you queen! time to stumble home. thanks to the elegant sofia i saw a fabulous show tonight called Cat House - HBO never fails to make me soooooo happy. its about a bordelo school!!! pleasure activists!!

and today we did the pilot show of word, this youth debate show for free speech tv - and the crew was amazing, especially the young promise, and derrick, and abraham, and the marvelous nell guiser, and all of them. and i got to work with keisha green from blackout arts collective who is the loveliest star in the constellation de brooknam! the show i must admit, was dope! hot ladies and even the socialist was appealing and succinct {xoxo lucas!}, got mad viewpoints, we made social security interesting! so hope you all get to see it air, or the dvd which will have all the performances and bloopers and resources.

and i’m watching season 1 of in living color thanks to my homey kevlar, who works at moviefone and as a result is hooked up with enough dvds to run a legitimate kevflix borrowing system. mo money mo money mo money. two snaps in a circle. black world! and i think damon wayans is a genius and i want my next lova-lova to be homey the clown slash a man on film who can make 8 rooms from a cardboard box.

and…what else - got two lovely emails tonight. one thanking me for handling a post raunchy evening gracefully - it was good for me too babies - and the other a blast from the past. life is good and tomorrow citizen cope - who has been knockin me sideways and helpin me find my way home for months - is at summerstage in the park.

AND my sister april ran 8 miles today!!!

oh, AND my cousin fell down in a bad way and she’s hurting but she’s gonna be ok, but the blessing is that if it had been a half inch in either direction that she’d landed (on the shoulders in a game of pool chicken, landed half on the ground, half in a pool, knocked herself out on the pool wall and fractured a lower vertebrae) she’d be paralyzed. thank you, thank you, all praise due, and thank you.

so tonight i am basking in the whiskey tinted joy of post pilot, pro sister, half-inch miracles. the grateful post ‘flesh that came from and will return to dirt’ madness. post debates that remind you we have no answers only beautiful questions and facts that could be popsicles in 100 years. remembering through my man crazy dave sherman the prophet’s words on love. remembering how good bedtime can feel after a good day.

keep an eye on www.freespeech.org for the show. and um…kisses!

its been raining all day, which makes me so happy that i negotiated to work from home on mondays and fridays. i encourage everyone to do this, as i’ve noticed it is awesome.

yesterday i got propositioned by a sexy older man but i punked out. maybe when i’m 30. no but seriously, you know how sometimes you are so THRU with someone and you are moving on and singing kelly clarkson really loud and just two snaps in a circle so fly, and then you come across something that the someone-you’re-thru-with gave you and it still kind of smells like their neck or hair or chest or something - and you forget how fly you are and take a moment and go with the feeling?  that happened t-minus 2 seconds after the proposition. timing is everything.

however in a heroic twist of bounce, i threw the smelly item in the laundry and turned kelly up and told the propositioner to definitely ask again someday soon and i then shaved my legs for the first time since the heartbreak.  i know its post-feminist or something but i acknowledge my socialization…the smoother the frame the smoother the game ya heard?

speaking of druglords, rush limbaugh occasionally, deserves to be quoted at his most apoplectic - this is him on july 5th: I’m tired of these Democrats acting like they won the election.
Somebody needs to stand up and say, "When you win the election, you
pick the nominees. Until then, shut up! Just shut up! Just go away! Bury yourselves in your rat holes and don’t come out until you win an election. When you win an election, you can put all these socialist wackos, like Ruth Bader Ginsburg and Stephen Breyer, all over the court, but until then, SHUT UP! You are really irritating me."

and in the final housing update my landlady is a true hustler. this morning she called and asked to show my apt, and now she just came and said she loves me as a tenant, do i want the apt across the hall from mine, same size, same cost, more light and with an oven and she’ll fix the bathroom? just when i think i’m out she pulls me back in!!

i hope some of y’all can come out tomorrow to shoot this youth debate show pilot - we have djs, artists,  a wide spread of guests and its gonna be amazing. email keishalgreen@yahoo.com if you can be at 87 lafayette in manhattan at 5pm!

last night my mama sat and told me and a few good friends the beautiful love story of my mom and dad. she remembered how he looked, how he smelled, what he wore, how they crossed paths, and how she ended up married to him 3 months after they started dating. the story was delightful and made me feel all better about how when its right, its right. race and the deep south cannot stop love. you could see everyone at the table like, spun again, on the old magic dust and zing zing and running into sunsets and yeah a person should throw themselves wholeheartedly and wildly into loving you or else don’t even check for them. go mama!! and then about having her babies - my mom was my age when she had her third and last child. she can spin such amazing stories, humble stories of her life and our lives. love that woman.

prayers for all my london folk. the g8 brought their violent outcomes with them then. such misdirected tragedy. a moment of silence…

in a far far inferior local tragedy, i found out this morning that my landlady is going to show my floormate and i’s apts right away. of course. so ny, so gutter. she’s starting to really quite upset me.

but i got a note today saying a loan has been paid off. this is impossible according to my payment schedule thus far but hey - gift horses should be ridden right? yee haw!